ROMEA D'AMEOR - LES ESPIONNES DU TSAR THE SPIES OF THE TSAR : FASCINATING! A perfume of essential oils to boost your confidence. A confident woman is self-assured and it shows. She stimulates and inspires those around her.
For women who are fulfilled in their femininity – worthy successors to the Tsar’s secret heroines. The Silver Liana, whose indigo flowers are crowned by a white velvet calyx, will lavish you with a delicate, muted charisma. It is rich in revitalizing properties to enhance your imagination and your learning and to invigorate your mind
ITALIAN LEMON
ISRAELI GRAPEFRUIT
LEMON SORBET
APPLE-MELON
SIBERIAN BABY WOODROSE
JASMINE-ROSE-LILY OF THE VALLEY
CHINESE MAGNOLIA
IRIS-SANDALWOOD-PATCHOULI
CARAMEL-MERINGUE
AMBER-VANILLA-MUSK St Petersbourg 1720.Tsar Peter the Great has recently been informed that Louis XV’s reputation as patron of the arts has spread beyond the borders of France. Numerous artists compete to win sought-after commissions to decorate the rooms of the French palaces. The Hermitage is due to receive one such piece proving to the Russian people that the city’s cultural influence will surpass that of any city in Europe, particularly as the Tsar wishes to be given the title of Emperor.
He decides, therefore, to send his favourite spy Anna to France. The next day at dawn, she climbs aboard a carriage waiting for her on the bank of the Neva.
As she travels through the sleeping suburbs, wrapped in an icy fog, the slightly tangy smell of the countryside reminds Anna of the lemon sorbet she tasted the previous evening in the company of the Tsar.
She had then been miles from imagining that the next day she would leave all alone on a long journey. The first few days had passed by without incident until one afternoon, towards the end of the week, the carriage swerved to avoid a hole in the road. It stopped dead in its tracks to the sound of breaking wood. As the ice melted that month of May, the tortuous road through the forest had become virtually impassable causing one of the spokes of the carriage wheels to wear out and finally to break.
This minor incident could have waited until the following inn had the coachman driven at a more moderate pace, but he was unwilling to take the risk and decided to make provisional repairs straightaway. The scent of flowers filled the forest air, and especially lily-of-the-valley which formed such a dense carpet that one imagined a hailstorm had just passed over showering its white pearls over the forest floor. The leather harnessing and the horses’ manes further added a powerfully aromatic note to the air.
After several weeks, Anna arrived at Versailles. With her she carried a letter scripted in Cyrillic and addressed to the court painter François Boucher, recent winner of the Grand Prix de Rome. Gaining access to Mr. Boucher so as to hand him personally the letter in question was to prove challenging but Anna knew she had what was needed to carry out her mission.
One evening she came directly to the courtyard outside his workshop and entered the hallway whereupon she requested to see the master. Her behaviour was, of course, considered inappropriate if not to say impertinent and all the more so as she made no mention of the name of the person who had sent her. She said that she would return just before midday the following day.
And so it was that just before lunch the next day the painter waited for her in a room adjacent to his workshop. The previous evening as he called upon one of his pupils to check on the progress of a series of paintings, he had suddenly become aware of a scent that he found more pleasant even than that of the paints mixed on his palette. He was told that a young lady had come to meet him and had left behind in her wake the mysterious perfume. His curiosity aroused the artist agreed, not without a certain mischief, to see Anna. She gave him the reason for her visit and the letter that promised him handsome payment if he were to paint a picture to be exhibited at the most famous museum in all of Russia.
No theme for the painting was specified as Peter the Great had declared in his letter the belief that the purest talent must be allowed to express itself freely. When Boucher looked up from reading, Anna had already disappeared. The perfume that escaped from a small piece of silk at the bottom of the envelope was his only source of inspiration.
The abstract vision enticed the artist into a creative frenzy and in no time at all he had completed the most magnificent painting. It was to be the first in a famous series of paintings and it might have been entitled “The secret heroines of the Tsar”, embodying the countless feminine nuances of Anna’s perfume.
In 1740 Catherine the Great acquired a landscape by the same artist which can be admired at the Hermitage. However, the original oil painting depicting a country scene in Russia is kept in secret vaults in Saint Petersburg.
Only a legendary perfume can bring it to life in our imaginations.. |
